I planted seven kinds of basil today

Late this afternoon I planted seven kinds of basil: Genovese basil aka basil, large leaf Italian basil, mammoth basil, Siam Queen (Thai) basil, cinnamon basil, lemon basil and lime basil. What? I like basil. And it is particularly scrumptious with heirloom tomatoes.

I remember the first time I saw herb plants could come in so many variations was on a class trip from my high school to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. They had a shop with basils and mints in several flavors and somehow that electrified me. In my senior year — 1971 — I begged my father to take me and a friend to the Flower Mart in Baltimore. I saw more varieties of basils and mints there, which interested me more than the flowers, although I would not get to grow them myself until 37 years later.

Another memory I have of Baltimore’s Flower Mart is a distinctive treat they sold — lemons with one end cut off and a thick, porous peppermint stick inserted so you could suck out the lemon juice through its vertical holes. I had to try one to see what the fuss was all about and found that peppermint sticks, however porous, are frustrating straws and don’t really sweeten the lemon juice that much.

BTW, the friend who went with me to the Flower Mart was Joan Ellis, who beat me for the role of Aldonza in our senior musical, Man of La Mancha, after I told her, like an idiot, to lose the Spanish accent for her second audition. In 1978 Joan created the role of Shy in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for which she was nominated for a Tony.

I also planted parsley and coriander this afternoon. A few days ago I planted six patty pans squashes, which are my father’s favorite squash. I’ve gotten my 15-gallon tomato containers lined up on the lawn and labeled, with a corresponding map of what is going where on an 11 x 17 pad of graph paper. The next step is to test the soil, add the necessary amendments — which will be a combination of calcium, Miracle Gro potting mix, pine bark mulch and Perlite (the latter two are to ensure the tomato plant roots get enough air) — and then I will put up my deer fence.

The deer fence is black plastic ribbon about 5/8-inch wide that I wrap around stakes that are about six-to-eight feet apart at a height of about 30 inches. I put two sturdy stakes a few feet apart to act as a door — the ribbon there can be tied and untied. It works pretty well because I can spray the tape with anti-deer spray so they tend to move on to better-smelling plants and if the smell doesn’t work, they can’t see it very well in the dark so it freaks them out when they walk into it. The most delicate time for my tomato garden, deer-wise, is when I first put the plants in the containers because if they eat the growing tip of the plant, it can’t grow or won’t recover very fast, depending on how much it was chomped, so I’ve learned to replace it immediately with one of my back-up plants.

When the soil in the containers is ready and the deer fence is up, then I will plant all the tomato plants. The planting goes quickly — it’s the preparation that takes time.

I’ll take photos tomorrow and post some of them to show my progress. After I finished planting the basil and parsley, it was so breezy and cool just before sunset that I had Dad come out and sit on the porch for awhile just to enjoy seeing the wind in the trees and how everything looked crisp and sparkling after the rain this afternoon. Beauregard and Remington also came out to inspect their catnip patch near the front porch. I grew the plants from seed last year and this year they are flourishing, much to the satisfaction of the puss population.

Note: I started writing this post late on Sunday, June 6, so “today” means June 6, even though I didn’t publish the post until almost 1 am on June 7.

DaTechguy's drive to blog full-time

I met Peter Ingemi at CPAC and like him very much. He is a loyal friend and linked my bleg last week, which I really appreciate. He is a Catholic and blogs as DaTechguy from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. He got on the radar of the conservative blogosphere by traveling around Massachusetts with Stacy McCain during the Scott Brown Senate campaign.

Peter is unemployed but has discovered that he loves blogging and reporting. He also has learned that Andrew Sullivan got his start in full-time blogging by telling his readers how much money he needed to raise to go full-time. So he is following Andrew’s example in his own bid to make blogging and reporting his new career. Check it out. Peter is asking his readers to measure his worth in Andrew Sullivans. Little Miss Attila, who is an authority on these things, advises her readers that DaTechguy is worth several Andrew Sullivans.

When the purpose of all-black groups is to remove doubts about racism

Warner Todd Huston over at Right Wing News apparently thinks he has discovered racism in the existence of an all-black swimming meet that drew almost 750 teens from several states to compete in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Huston doesn’t mind that the group is all-black  — freedom of association for private organizations and all that. What gets his goat is the legitimate point that if your goal is to compete and create champions, then the members of the group should be selected by merit, not color:

I do have a major problem with this story, though, and it was the above quote from young Kenny Cross of Raleigh. He said, “This is where champions are born.”

That they have fooled this young man into imagining that “champions” can come from a segregated event that is not filled with the best and brightest from every walk of life is a shame. Does this young man really think that only his black friends amount to “champions”? Does he think no other races could become champions?

The thing is, these kids are not competing against the best of all swimmers, they are merely competing with the best from their own small racial block. This is NOT how champions are made. Champions are made through wide spread competition and limiting yourselves to only specific blocks of people is not the way to create champions.

Let me tell you a story to explain why I think teen-aged and young adult blacks may really need all-black swim teams, colleges, whatever — although on their own dime, because, see banner above, “conservative lesbian.” Years ago I read a news story about a black young adult who explained to a reporter that he resented the racism he encountered from all his professors at the predominantly white university he attended so much that he transferred to a predominantly black university. However, much to his surprise, his black professors told him he was exactly the kind of jerk that his white professors had. To his credit, he then realized that his white professors were not being racist when they found fault with him — he was a jerk and it was their job to tell him so and set his feet on a better path. However, thanks to the Alinksky rule for radicals that identity group grievances must constantly be “rubbed raw,” this young man had no way of being able to distinguish between racial insults and accurate, if unflattering, feedback.

That’s why there is a legitimate place for all-black groups, especially when their mission is to develop excellence in children, teens and young adults. The process goes better when the participants don’t have to spend a single second pondering whether prejudice is animating how they are being treated. Removing that variable clears a host of mental and emotional obstacles to achieving excellence. Think of them as a bridge between childhood and adulthood that strengthens these individuals to be able to participate later in groups of diverse races, religions, sexual orientation and so on, with a strong self-confidence that CAN tell the difference between criticism that is justified and racist remarks intended to hurt and to be able to deal positively with both.

Obama tosses crumb to lesbian and gay federal employees to dissipate the momentum of gay equality efforts

Well, that’s MY take on Obama’s motives. June is Gay Pride month, which Obama observed last year by tossing an even smaller crumb to gay and lesbian employees. He’s not trying the same gambit this year that he used successfully last year, though — he trumpeted a list of benefits gay and lesbian federal employees would get — and here is the weasel escape clause — as long as they did not violate federal law. Since the 1994 Defense of Marriage Act passed with the support of Democratic President Bill Clinton is federal law and was written to prevent both same-sex marriage AND the incremental enactment of legal rights for lesbians and gays, pretty much everything on the menu Obama and his proxies waved around was never going to be served at the separate and non-equal lunch counter for lesbians and gays. They must have caught onto this trick, or Obama would be using it again.

The San Francisco Gate has Obama’s full statement — the following excerpt is the closing paragraph. I think it reveals that Obama’s true goal is to appease lesbians and gays enough so they stop being so uppity and and quit demanding the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of a law that ensures our full equality under the law:

“While this Memorandum is an important step on the path to equality, my Administration continues to be prevented by existing Federal law from providing same-sex domestic partners with the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. That is why, today, I renew my call for swift passage of an important piece of legislation pending in both Houses of Congress — the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act. This legislation, championed by Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, would extend to the same-sex domestic partners of Federal employees the full range of benefits currently enjoyed by Federal employees’ opposite-sex spouses. I look forward to signing it into law.”

Why isn’t Obama calling for the swift REPEAL of the Defense of Marriage Act? “Domestic Partnership” is NOT marriage. It is NOT equality. Yo! Obama! Pelosi! Reid! ONLY equality will do!

Update, 6/3/2010, Thurs.: It would not take the military nearly so long to figure out how to implement the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) if Congress also repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and enacted legislation ensuring equality for lesbians and gays. Without equality for lesbians and gays, the military services are creating their own separate-and-gallingly-unequal patchwork of who gets what and when.

Dennis Prager is wrong about the 'T' in LGBT

Dennis Prager has a rant at the National Review Online on the self-posed question, “Why the ‘T’ in GLBT?”

First of all, Dennis, it’s LGBT — lesbians first. We found out at the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement that gay men in the 1970’s confused lesbians with their mothers and thought we lived to get them coffee and follow their orders. We promptly disabused them of these notions and to remind them of this we insisted the lesbians get listed first in the acronyms.

Second, “B” and “T” and “S” and “M” and motley hordes of sexual minorities then poured into the gay rights movement without so much as a “by your leave.” Each and every one of them is still intent on claiming superior victim status to entitle them to hijack our movement to their own benefit. Of these minorities, “T” has been the most successful in usurping the energies of lesbians and gays in our quest for equality thanks to their manipulativeness, which is backed up by epic tantrums and histrionic displays.

My own point of view is that transsexualism is a self-mutilation personality disorder and that if transsexuals want civil rights, they should have the integrity to found their own movement. I also want them the hell out of lesbian spaces, which they like to invade and dominate.

I never use the acronym “LGBT” because I think “B” and “T” should be running their own civil rights organizations, neither of which will ever get any support from me.

The bottom line is that the Left has not concocted a plot to blur the distinctions between male and female — although, dude, lighten up, the Fifties are over.

Update, 6/4/2010, Fri.: Over in the Hot Air Green Room, Cassy Fiano has some thoughts about a pair of MTF (male-to-female) transgender women who had both had breast implant surgery but had not yet had their penises flayed and inverted to create a facsimile of a vagina. They took their tops off while sunbathing on the beach in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware, but could not be arrested because they still have penises and there’s no law against men going topless:

My point is that the anatomical truth stands. You can do whatever you want to your body, you can carve it up however you like, but biologically speaking, you remain the gender you were born with.

(snip)

And hey, they have every right to do so. I don’t think there should be any rules against it, nor do I think they should be harassed or intimidated or anything of that nature. If that’s what makes them happy, then go for it. But let’s get real here, and call it what it is.

These two weren’t arrested because they were men, despite their breast implants (and probably countless other gender modifications). Regardless of how much people like Jill huff and puff about it, the fact remains that if you have a penis, you are a MAN.

I figure those two intended to create a drama in which they could hurt everyone around them and yet play the victims. I am sorry that it didn’t end with them going to jail for disturbing the peace.

FYI, if you suspect that someone presenting themselves as a woman is really a man, don’t look for the “package” to give him away, even if he’s wearing a tight bathing suit. They pull the package down between their legs and tape it. Listen to the voice, look at the jaw line and check for an adam’s apple. The bullying is another giveaway.

R.L. Hymers threatens Little Miss Attila to suppress reporting on the Hymers cult — becomes MUCH more famous

Robert Leslie Hymers, III, in order to clear his name, on account of it being almost identical to that of Robert Leslie Hymers, Jr., his father, has launched a campaign of libel and intimidation against my fairy blogmother, Little Miss Attila, aka Joy McCann. It includes making spurious claims in an effort to get the FBI involved.

Counter-intuitively to Hymers III — but not to bloggers — he is now MUCH more famous than he was before he began. Also counter-intuitively to Hymers III, who says he is trying to clear his own name before beginning law school, he has besmirched his name globally to anyone who Googles him from now on as part of their due diligence before doing business with him. That is because people can tell the difference between a father and a son and not visit the sins of the father on the son.

But now R.L. Hymers III has sinned on his own account. He has gone on record as going to considerable effort to discover the address of someone and threatening her for belonging to a private Yahoo group and writing about her experiences on her blog, including threats to publish her home address. And somehow this proto-lawyer did not consider the remedies available to him and his father under the laws of libel — although, dagnabbit, one of the elements of libel is that the statements have to be false — which may be why he did not take that avenue of pursuit.

Joy has the full story at her place:

“Robert Leslie Hymers, III, Sort-Of ‘Reports’ Me to the FBI”

“And the Second Threatening Letter from the Hymerses’ Attorney”

And, as dear Attila notes, the blogosphere exploded:

Eric, at Classical Values:

Joy McCann (who writes Little Miss Attila — a blog I have enjoyed for years), is being subjected to legal attacks for criticizing a man many people would consider religious crackpot and cult leader, one R.L. Hymers.

Let me begin by saying that I never heard of R.L. Hymers until today! Perhaps I don’t keep up with these things as I should, but seeing an old blogosphere friend under attack for exercising her First Amendment rights made me want to learn about the attacker.

Dr. James Joyner of Outside the Beltway: “Fun with Cults.”

Stacy McCain of The Other McCain: “Siccing the FBI on Little Miss Attila?”

Prof. Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit: “It’s seldom a good idea to send legal threats to bloggers.” My addendum: Unless it is your intention to become famous/infamous.

Dan Collins of Piece of Work in Progress (aka POWIP): “Little Miss Attila Referred to FBI by Son of Cult Leader.”

Moe Lane: “Because the FBI has no *real* demands on its time, of course.”

Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints: “Robert Leslie Hymers III: Pipsqueak/Weasel.” And H/T to Bob for the link to the Memeorandum thread on Hymers’ threats against Little Miss Attila.

Da Tech Guy: “I Stand with Little Miss Attila.” As do I, Attila, as do I.